


Fear of the Unknown

by black_hat_with_bells



Category: Harry Poter - Fandom
Genre: Other, Violence, dark thinking, some uh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-20
Updated: 2013-01-20
Packaged: 2017-11-26 04:39:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/646653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/black_hat_with_bells/pseuds/black_hat_with_bells
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Luna gets stuck in the past. Tom gets stuck on her. Whatever shall he do?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fear of the Unknown

**Author's Note:**

> I'm going to warn for some violence but nothing too bad.

Tom Riddle was the one to see the girl first. 

He was up, sleepless. Watchful. He considered the orphanage to be the only real place in the world, and that was because he was in it. People in town whispered it was haunted, coming up with the most morbid of stories to give credit to the events. Tom knew better. So did the inhabitants of the orphanage, though, what they knew they couldn't quite say. 

Neither could Tom. That was quite fine with him for the moment. Someday, though, this power would not be enough. He feared it in a way, the unknown. She appeared when he was feeling uneasy: is that supposed to be unrelated to himself? (When nothing was unrelated to himself?) 

It was raining, and the space on the car seemed ghostly. In the dirty lights, the figure stepped out into the dark. Tom felt an instinctive dislike at the sight of her. Her robes were a mess of color that made no sense. She had what appeared to be radishes in her ears, and she stared up at his window. 

He tilted his head, wondering if she could sense him. 

Mrs. Cole rushed out into the rain, gathering the girl up with a fake warmth that drove Tom from the window. He sensed the voices echoing underneath his feet, sensed that difference in the building. It was like a rotten tooth in his head, this change. She was new. 

He'd see to it.

 

*** 

Tom heard the laughter in the morning, and it dug in deepdeep into his skull. 

What had changed? Oh yes. The new girl. Tom decided to give it no interest until there was a reason to. She'd fade in and look like all the rest. (To him, most people did look all the same. Grey and the same.) He lifted the bed up a foot this time, and lowered it. Exercising his difference. In his head, Tom thought he was God. He must be. It was the only reason for this, for what he could do. 

It explained why his father never came back for him. Because his father wasn't real. 

Tom was hungry for more with his ability: he felt as if he was hitting a brick wall, as if there had to be more. 

"Is everyone downstairs!?" Cole shrieked, and Tom went, ignoring those that cleared his path. He sat down, looking at the meager meal, and let his fingers burn underneath the table. These things, these acts, was all that made him real, unlike the rest, and he was growning more and more dependent on the feeling. 

"Ahem. I'd like to have everyone's attention." He kept his gaze on his hands. 

"Everyone's!" Cole repeated, and Tom felt a leap of hatred burn through him. He despised being told what to do by an unreal thing. He wished he could wish her away, but he looked up. And his gaze was caught. 

That girl. In the light, she was even worse than before. He sensed something different about her. Among the gray, she stood out, and it overwhelmed him, he didn't know what to do with it. Her eyes were sharp silver, oversized, and she never blinked. There was an energy about her, something that reminded him of the moon in the dark sky. 

He didn't like it. 

She stared up at Cole, and Cole tried very hard not to look down at her. 

"I have a new member to our family. Luna...well. Luna," Cole said, her smile strained. "Everyone say hello to Luna. EVERYONE." 

He didn't say hello but he didn't think he could. There was a long pause--too long--as Luna looked out among the children. Several started to squirm. 

"Hello," Luna said, finally, her voice bells. "I've never been kidnapped before, but I suspect you are all Fae, and so I won't be rude." 

Cole laughed, strained. "Well, we could be, if that's what you want to pretend."

"You said this wasn't a home,' Luna said, to Cole. "You said this was to give children to other families." 

Tom found himself smiling, and quickly, forced his lips down into a scowl. It was rare, this spark of amusement. Foreign. He didn't like her, but he liked that she had Cole so red in the face. 

"Yes, but this is just as much a family, little one. Go sit down now." 

"You could...adopt them all," Luna offered. Several children gasped, this possibility formerly unthought of. 

"Sit down!" Cole said, giving her a push. Luna looked around, too long again, and a groundskepper rushed up to help her to a seat. Tom looked down at his hands again, then up at the rafters, where he had put the rabbit that time to dangle. 

It gave him some comfort, but he was displeased when she didn't fade into the background. 

***

The first incident happened on the stairs. It only took one incident. 

Mrs. Cole had a hour set aside for them to wander outside in the yard. For their exercise. Tom had a place on the top stoop, and no one questioned him. Anyone who had previously suffered intense pain, at his will, or had shadows wake them up at strange hours. Or heard hissing voices. He could make them hurt if they got near him, and the lesson had been well-engrained. 

She...(Luna)...pushed him on her way down. As if he didn't exist in her world. When he turned in shock, she was already down the steps, as if she didn't notice. 

And she hadn't noticed. She looked at the sky and walked though a group's game of marbles without heed at the screeching she had caused. She finally stopped by a tree and after some contemplation, sat down, this expression of utter vacancy on her face. 

It drove him--to move towards her. He felt something shaking inside of him, the world threatening to crumble down. He was real, and in a second, she had made him doubt it. 

He stood over her, his shadow covering her. She didn't look or notice. 

"Luna," he said, unaccustomed to speaking people's names. She blinked for once, and her eyes focused. 

"Oh that's my name." 

He didn't know what to do. 

"What's your name?" she asked. "You do have one, like the rest of the orphans?"

And that, he did know what to do with. "You should leave. Run." 

"I'd like to," Luna said peacefully. "My father will be back soon." 

"No, now," Tom said. "I'll let you out the gate. You leave now."

"No," Luna said, still calm. 

He smiled coldly at her and left to his side of the building. He thought this time, he'd enjoy himself. She was going to acknowledge him. 

No matter how much he had to hurt her. 

***

Tom sent the voices first. 

One child was taken to the sick home after he had sent them enough times. Luna spoke back to them. 

"I don't agree," Luna said. "You're the one who is ill, speaking to me without a head. My father said some people are air-heads, but I've never met one before. It has to be a condition."

And so on and on it went, with the girl talking back. 

"You can take me along with my eyes," Luna said. "I'd like to see where you'd go. Please do!" 

Tom crept away from the door, his heart pounding. He was thinking on her for more than a day, and it was starting to...be unbearable. 

***

Now, it had been a week. 

He had made her nose bleed during crafts, and she used the blood to paint flowers on her paper. He had drug her down the hall by her hair, and she had laughed along with cried, at the existence of whackspurts. He couldn't sleep, her image burned on the back of his eyes. 

However, when the others circled her, he stepped in, without having to say a word. They backed off. She was his, after all. 

Next week, he tried the pain. He pictured the glass clearly in his mind and imagined it inside of her. She sat with tears, but not a cry. He didn't know how to feel about it. He wanted his feelings to go away, that was all. Mrs. Cole finally noticed the blood and carried the girl to the infirmary. 

"Why didn't you say anything?" Cole demanded while Tom stood in the shadows. 

"It wasn't that bad. I've been through the worst. That's what Daddy said," Luna said. "I had faith it was for the best. Nothing isn't good in some way."

He wanted to scream and scream, only he couldn't. Something inside of him was twisting.

Hurting. 

***

Tom found the bracelet on the bedside, and he took it without thought.

It was too early. He hadn't made a mark on her at all. He waited to see her expression, but when he found her in the yard, she smiled at him. 

"Do you like what I left for you, Tom?" Luna asked. "It's almost Christmas, and I wanted you to have it. It was my mother's." 

The world completely collapsed. His existence, of being the only, was gone. What she could do to him. What she had done to him. 

"Your eyes are red, you know." 

He was going to have to end her. 

***

The true surprise was that Luna followed him to the field. 

"What do you have to show me?" Luna asked, a familiar question once posed to him by Amy Benson. This time, it was an act of desperation.

"Something special. Stand right there. It'll be last thing you'll ever remember." 

Luna seemed to think it was unlikely, but she stood in place. He spoke his true language, hissing--and it was the first time he had ever done it in front of another. Luna's face brightened in awe. Unnerved, sickened. he looked away. The ground began to seethe and move, as serpents began to appear, crawling up to the sun. 

The girl turned to stare at them all. Stare at them all slithering towards her, a solid mass, coming for her. 

"Oh. How magical," Luna said, knowingly. 

"Enough!" Tom cried out. "Don't you get it? I'm about to kill you. You're about to die! You're going to die!" 

She stared at him. Stared at him. He wished he had never wanted her acknowledgment. He wanted to rip and tear, and...his arms lowered, as he waited for her to speak. Please scream. Please. He didn't know what to do if she didn't. 

"Why Tom," Luna said, her eyes deep and holding. "You say that like it's a bad thing." 

***

Tom feared the unknown. 

That was why he couldn't let her go. Couldn't let her go without understanding her. He had mastered fears of the dark, of himself, of his thoughts: he could master her. 

So, he let her live. Now, Luna sat on his bed besides him, quite at peace. Eventually, he'd understand her, and eventually, he'd send her off, conquer her, and add her to his collection. Until then, he'd be patient and keep her close to him. 

"Your father isn't coming back," Tom said. "I don't know why you continue to wait."

"I know he isn't," Luna said. "It'll be all right. Maybe he was with my mom. You see, it was a Time Turner accident. He had gone back to stop her from doing the experiment. I lost hold of his hand." 

Tom pretended to understand it, because he understood everything. 

"Ah," he offered. 

"I'm a witch," she finally confided, watching him across the way, and before he could stop himself, he spoke, daring. 

"I'm think I'm God," Tom informed her, and she didn't flinch away, like he would have expected. "At least some kind," he corrected, not looking away from her gaze, but feeling sated. She shook his hand, vigorously, then paused. 

"Are you sure you're not a wizard?" 

"I'm much more than that," Tom said, "though I am probably a wizard too." 

"Should I kneel?"

"How should I know?" Tom demanded. 

"You are God...of some sort. You should know." 

"You can shake my hand," Tom said, "You've already started." 

Luna finished. "I've always wanted to meet you. I wondered if you could bring back my mother?" 

Tom paused, and despite himself, squeezed her hand. 

"After I bring back mine." 

Things changed again, when his birthday arrived in two days. But that was far away at the moment, and all he knew was that he was calm for the first time in his life.


End file.
